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The Postal Service’s fiscal year, so far

On Friday, May 8, the Postal Service reported its results for the fiscal second quarter (January–March 2015) and the first six months of the fiscal year (October 2014–March 2015).

For the three months ending March 31, the Postal Service reported a $313 million operating profit (see page 19 of the 2015 Form 10-Q), an increase of $52 million and 20 percent over the results for the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2014.

For the six months ending March 31, the Postal Service reported a $1.437 billion operating profit (see page 19 of the 2015 Form 10-Q, an increase of 40 percent over the results for the same period in Fiscal Year 2014.

Operating profit or loss excludes two items: the congressionally mandated retiree health benefits pre-funding charge, and non-cash accounting adjustments to workers’ compensation. (These adjustments are not payments and are driven primarily by ups and downs in market interest rates and by actuarial estimate changes.)

Excluding these items gets us to a picture of what is really going on with the business of selling postage and delivering mail—and this picture continues to improve.

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